Hardboiled Hats
by Seito
Summary: It had been another day, another case closed. Yet Shoutarou blinked and found himself in a city of skyscrapers and strange masked people walking around. How does a Kamen Rider fare against the Masks? Post-KRW


midnightluck asked:  
 _Can you tell us about the time Philip and Shoutarou ended up in tenkuu shinpan? Or maybe why Sniper Mask decided to wear that particular hat style?_

Nonexistent fandom meet rare fandom. xDDD

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It had been a windy day in Fuuto. Another case solved and completed. The number of Dopants was slowly beginning to decline now that the primary source of Gaia Memories had dried up. But with Philip back, they were slowly clearing out the remainder.

Shoutarou tipped his hat, turning to look at Fuuto Tower.

"Ehh~" Shoutarou squinted, peering in the distance. A large tower, taller than Fuuto Tower, began to appear, like a hazy mirage. He rubbed his eyes, trying to dispel what was clearly on a trick. Instead, the image grew clearly and Shoutarou blinked.

Gone was the wide open outdoors, a window now stood in front of Shoutarou. The image of the tower sharpened, crystal clear through the glass. Surrounding it, skyscrapers reached upward, smaller but still looming like giants. "What's going on?" he yelped.

Where had Fuuto's skyline gone? It looked as if he had wandered into Tokyo with all the tall buildings.

The sounds of something heavy being dragged drew his attention away. Shoutarou cautiously stuck his head out the door, looking down the hall. Lumbering down the hallway was a bulky man with smiley face mask. He was dragging along a large hammer behind him.

"Hey!" Shoutarou called out to him. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The masked man looked up at him. Then in a startling burst of speed, lunged at Shoutarou, swinging his hammer down. Shoutarou jumped out of the way, landing further down the hall.

"What are you doing!" Shoutarou said. "What kind of man goes and attacks people!"

The masked man rushed forward, bringing his hammer down again. Shoutarou ran up the stairs. 'Philip?" he thought, trying to sense his partner through their driver connection.

There was no answer.

A cold sweat ran down Shoutarou's head. The silence was far too eerie. It reminded him of the year where Philip was gone. 'PHILIP!'

Shoutarou burst out the door, heading the edge of the building. He peered down, dizzily staring up at the height. If he fell from this height…

The masked man came lumbering out of doorway, hammer raised high. Shoutarou grit his teeth. Without Philip, he couldn't transform into W. He wasn't so foolish to think he could stop this masked man without W either.

The speed at which the masked man moved at. The way he swung that hammer and the power behind it. It was as if he was Dopant, but Shoutarou had never encountered a Dopant like this.

He took a step back, looking down at the looming edge. 'Philip!' he called out in his mind again, desperately hoping that his partner could hear him.

'Shoutarou!'

Philip's cyclone memory dropped into the driver. Shoutarou didn't hesitate, slamming down on as he dodged another lunge from the masked man. He let the transformation wash over him, feeling the comfort of Philip's mind sit right next to him.

'Shoutarou!' Philip shouted. 'Where are we?'

'First, where are you? Was there any masked men around?' Philip's body was defenseless and Shoutarou didn't know where Extreme Memory was. And unless it was proven otherwise, Shoutarou wasn't going to be trusting any more masked men. Not when this one just attacked him on the spot.

'No, I didn't see any, but Shoutarou did you see that tower? Who is this?'

W danced out of another attack.

'I have no idea,' Shoutarou responded. 'But if we can, we need to perform a Memory Break as soon as possible. I don't want your body unattended. Did Xtreme Memory come with you?'

'Yes, it did.'

'Good. Next time we'll use Xtreme until we know more.'

W slide into a ready stance, hand transferring the memory to his belt. "Maximum Drive, Joker Extreme!"

They kicked the masked man, shattering his mask. He fell over, groaning. Shoutarou quickly undid his own transformation, not wanting to keep Philip separated from his body for long.

"Hey!" Shoutarou ran over. He didn't see any broken pieces of a Gaia Memory on the ground, but the mask had been shattered. The man groaned, sitting up. With the mask gone, it revealed a chubby face and thick mustache.

The man clutched his head. "It-it's gone!" he said. "The programming!"

Shoutarou frowned. Programming? "What are you talking about?"

"The Mask programming!" the man shouted, grabbing Shoutarou's vest. "Don't look behind the mask. It forces you to it put oh -"

He got no further, before a bullet pierced his head. Shoutarou's eyes widened as he scrambled for cover. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the glint of a rifle. A sniper!

Bat Shot flew out of his hand, as Shoutarou took cover behind the stairway entrance He pulled out his Stag Phone, pulling up the live video feed. He zoomed in the sniper's direction. There in a black suit and armed was the sniper. His black fedora shadowed a white smiley face mask.

"To be so hardboiled but a Mask," Shoutarou tsked, shaking his head. This wasn't an enemy he wanted to engage with. Bat Shot darted out of it vantage point, narrowing missing a bullet from the sniper and back to Shoutarou's hand.

The soft pitch cry of Xtreme Memory soaring towards him lifted Shoutarou's spirit. Smart thing, he was flying in a way that Sniper couldn't it out of the sky. He grabbed the memory, letting the transformation wash over him once more. W's body was practically bulletproof.

"Who is that Shoutarou?"

"No clue, but he's dangerous," Shoutarou answered back. "Let's get out of here."

"There should be a suspension bridge that will lead to another building," Philip said. "If we can make it to the stairs, the other suspension bridge out of the building is further down. The sniper won't have a chance to hit us."

"Let's do it."

W sprinted for the suspension bridge, darting straight across to the next building's roof. They skid down the stairs, trying to put as much distance between them and the sniper.

Once they were reasonably far away enough, the transformation dropped, revealing Shoutarou and Philip. They glanced around the room and the tall buildings skyline.

"What now, Shoutarou?" Philip asked.

Shoutarou took off his hat to run a hand through his hair. "I don't know," he said, frustrated. "But -" he looked at the tall tower in the distance, "-we should head to that tower. I bet we'll find our answers there."

There were plenty of questions left to answer. Who were the Masks, what was the programming the hammer masked man was walking about, and why were they here, how did they get here?

Hopefully that tower held the answer. All Shotarou wanted was to go back to Fuuto with Philip.

He placed his hat back on his head. "Well the job of a Kamen Rider is never done."

Philip nodded in agreement. "Shall we go, partner?"

Shoutarou grinned. "Yes, let's."

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